Logging Student Hours

[PingPongPerson]

At CV Robotics we use a time manager system on the team website. When you log in, you can check who else is logged in, how much time you have, and you can change your password and contact information.
http://cvhsrobotics.net/time/

We are yet to log hours, but I hope to implement it this year. Unfortunately, we have some "time wasting" students who sit around and actually slow down our team, so it'll be difficult to get an accurate measure of who is there working, and who is there but not doing anything.

This is my idea:

Have a sign-in sheet with times, and a space for the student to put down what they did before they leave. Then, have a select group of students who are usually always at the meetings, and the mentors work as lookouts during the meetings, and observe what others are doing, and when they arrive/leave. Then, when they review the charts, they can compare what they collectively observed to what the chart says.

Does this seem like a good idea?

[rifkinni]

Our team currently has about 100 students, so to log everybody's hours would be nearly impossible. We have several student leaders keep track of who shows up, and require that every team member comes at least 3 times a week. We don't have a minimum time requirement, because a student who only puts in a little bit of time per day can still be an asset to the team. In the past, we have had students who put in a lot of time but were counter productive, so this year, we are asking our student leaders to conduct performance reviews. Hopefully, this will let us know who is productive and who is not, and will help our teammates improve themselves if needed.

[dudefise]

We have a binder that has sign-in sheets in it, which we add into an excel file. We then convert it into points, which are awarded for hours of work. It's largely based on the honor system, but we have a small team so it would be hard to inflate points by a significant amount.

[Nick Rixford]

During my time on 126 we punched in our time when we came in and left. We had to get a specific amount of hours to travel. I think it works pretty well actually. But that is just my opinion Good luck!

[sanddrag]

I am still in search of a simple bare-bones software to track student hours. All I need it to do is allow various people to "clock in" and "clock out" using a USB bar code reader which basically just inputs the numeric ID just as if a keyboard were to. I need one admin account that can view hours for all the users.

I do not want to have a system where users must log into a web interface with a password. I simply want to be able to swipe cards.

TimeTrex does not seem to support this.

Any ideas?

[Jon Stratis]

At the beginning of the build season, we print out timesheets for each subteam - dates across the top, members down the side. Each mentor is responsible for checking off who was present each meeting, and this is later used for determination of who can travel with the team (minimum participation is already laid out in the handbook), and who can be part of the pit crew (again, laid out in the handbook).

Our team is small enough (20-25 students every year) that we know who participated enough and who didn't without having to refer to the sheets. But we always check them in questionable cases, and have them as backup if anyone complains.

[tcjinaz]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I am still in search of a simple bare-bones software to track student hours. All I need it to do is allow various people to "clock in" and "clock out" using a USB bar code reader which basically just inputs the numeric ID just as if a keyboard were to. I need one admin account that can view hours for all the users.

I do not want to have a system where users must log into a web interface with a password. I simply want to be able to swipe cards.

TimeTrex does not seem to support this.

Any ideas?

I have been writing one of these in LabView, A neat little exercise. No card swipe, but that's a good way to minimize time to clock in/out.

[Mr_I]

Team 811's been using a home-brew system (written in VB) for years. Each student enters their student ID number when then enter / exit at a dedicated PC right at the door. The system keeps track of hours worked.

Future enhancements will include a finger print reader, but that never seems to get done for some reason ...